A Toad for Revenge
by Healer Pomfrey
Summary: Severus Snape wants to get his revenge on James Potter through Harry. An Occlumency lesson gives him the perfect opportunity. Set in Harry's fifth Hogwarts year. Completely AU, Snape OOC, evil!Snape, bad language, abuse!Harry, rating! NOT my usual fluff!


**A Toad for Revenge**

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AN: Warning: This story is NOT NICE. Please observe the rating! **_

_**For JWOHPfan - I promised her to write an 'Evil Snape' story ages ago, but I never managed so far. This is a first - hope you'll enjoy!**_

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Severus Snape stood in his office, throwing Harry Potter a hateful glare. "How dare you look at my memories, you little shit? I'll teach you what happens with dunderheads who are as bigheaded as your horrible father!" he shouted in rage as he pulled a phial with a dark green liquid out of his drawer. For a long time, he had pondered taking this measure, but for the first time, he felt angry enough to pull through with his plan. Enjoying every second in gleeful anticipation, he took the phial between his thumb and the index finger of his right hand and moved forward, throwing the phial at the stunned boy.

With hateful contentedness, he observed as the glass shattered and the boy began to change. He shrunk until nothing was left but a tiny body under a former Gryffindor student's black school clothes. '_How convenient that your lesson tonight was not planned and I only caught you in the halls by chance_,' he chuckled as he levitated the toad from under the pile of clothes in disgust.

"As much as I'd love to call you '_Potter_'," he said, spitting the name of his former childhood nemesis, "I'll stick to '_Shit_'." Carrying the small animal between his thumb and index finger in obvious disgust to his private potions lab, he conjured a small cage and placed the toad inside. "There. Now, I don't want to hear anything from you, you ugly worthless creature." With that he left the lab, closing the door behind himself. '_That gives me an object to test the potions for the Dark Lord_,' he thought. '_There are enough potions that don't work properly on rats_.'

Feeling happier than he had felt in a long time, Severus retired to bed. Instead of the usual nightmares about Potter and Black and werewolves, blissful sleep engulfed him, and he woke up feeling more refreshed than he could remember having felt since his childhood. Before heading to the Great Hall, he glanced into his lab to make sure that the matter had not been a wonderful dream, but that he indeed had a new toad familiar residing in his private lab.

"Shit," he acknowledged the animal's presence and took some weeds from his ingredients as well as a small bowl of water and set it into the cage, noticing that the toad seemed to be very thirsty. Without further paying attention to the toad, he swiftly left the lab, knowing that it was time for breakfast.

To his surprise, it took another full twenty-four hours, until the boy's disappearance was first noticed. At breakfast on the following day, the Headmaster announced that Harry Potter had gone missing two nights ago on his way back from Professor Umbridge's office to the Gryffindor common room.

"Severus, do you have an idea if that was the work of Death Eaters?" Dumbledore asked gently, causing Severus to raise an eyebrow.

"No Headmaster, I didn't hear anything," he replied in his silky voice, contentedly thinking to himself, '_but I have a toad pet_.'

Over the following months, Severus kept the toad in its cage. He fed it from his ingredients, gave it water once a day and used it as test object for his potions every now and then, feeling extreme pleasure when he noticed that Shit was in discomfort. '_I hope you're able to witness this, James fucking Potter_,' he thought hatefully.

The only thing that really graded on his nerves was the way, in which the Gryffindor students spoke about their missing student day after day, and he decided to give them something else to think about. One day, he invented a fever potion, which he, as usual, tested on Shit first. He spelled the potion into the toad's stomach, noticing that it took mere seconds, until the small animal lay on its side, letting out small moans. He pointed his wand at the toad's head to take his temperature. _'40.1, that means the potion is efficient. Let's see how it develops_.' For a week, he observed the toad, realising that his fever only came down a degree every three days.

Severus smirked evilly as he unobtrusively spelled the potion into the pumpkin juice on the Gryffindor table a week before the beginning of the Christmas holidays. Even the fact that he had to spend the whole evening in his lab to brew several batches of his strongest fever reducer, since the whole Gryffindor tower was in quarantine, because most of the students were spiking a high fever without any apparent reason, couldn't taint his good mood. '_They'll realise soon that the fever reducer is not going to work, and that the fever just has to wear off by itself_,' he grinned inwardly.

"Thanks for testing the potion for me, Shit. Your House mates will have much time to talk about their lost saviour, considering that they're going to be stuck in bed over the whole holidays," he sneered, suddenly noticing that Shit was apathetically laying on his side, gasping for air. He quickly took the toad's temperature that was at thirty-five degrees now. '_Well, considering that the air temperature is eighteen degrees, his temperature is about twice as high as it should_,' he realised and decided to give the toad a special fever reducer, which he had developed as antidote to his fever potion.

"Not that you earned it, you ugly creature," he told Shit with a disgusted expression on his face, "but I can't have you die. I'll need you for more experiments. I have several ideas for nice potions for your useless friends."

The toad looked at him from glassy green eyes. '_Lily's eyes_,' Severus thought and spat, "Shit, if you think you can make anything better by looking at me from your mother's eyes, you're sadly mistaken. I loved her, but that's a long time ago and ended when she went off with that useless shithead of your father. You're disgusting."

During the following months, Severus had to invent several potions for the Dark Lord and appreciated that he had the toad in his office, so that he could easily any potion right away. He tested the Cruciatus Potion, the Imperius Potion and several other cruel inventions; only for the Avada Kedavra Potion he grudgingly went to search for a rat.

A TOAD FOR REVENGE

One day, a toad escaped from his owner during Potions class and entered the Potions Master's private quarters. It was Trevor, the toad of fifth year Gryffindor student Neville Longbottom.

'Hi there,' Trevor said to the toad in the cage.

'Hi. You're Trevor, aren't you?'

'Yes, why do you know? You're Shit, aren't you? At least that's what Snape told someone.'

'I am Harry Potter. He made me a toad. Can you help me?'

Trevor sadly shook his head. 'I'm so sorry, Harry. I am in fact Neville's uncle Adam. He doesn't even know about me. My mother, his granny, transfigured me into a toad when she realised that I'm a Squib. I have tried everything, but no one understands me. I have even tried to make Professor McGonagall transfigure me back, but no one understands. We'll have to remain toads until the end of our lives.'

A TOAD FOR REVENGE

One day, Severus noticed that Shit was lying on the ground, breathing heavily. His temperature was up to more than thirty degrees. '_It should be eighteen just as the room temperature_,' Severus mused and spelled a fever reducer into the toad's stomach.

However, when he woke up during the night, he felt absolutely miserable. '_Perhaps I caught whatever was ailing Shit_,' he thought as a violent shiver ran through his body. Unfortunately unable to take his own temperature by magic, he grudgingly pulled a thermometer out of his drawer and stuck it under his tongue, groaning in annoyance. '_I still need to know which fever reducer I need_,' he told himself as he impatiently waited for the reading to take place. _'40.5_,' he read from the display, '_I need the strongest one_.' He quickly summoned a phial from his potions lab and gulped it down. Nevertheless, his fever had risen another degree by the morning.

'_Thank God it's Saturday_,' he thought as he dragged himself to the fireplace to call Poppy, who shooed him back to bed instantly.

"Severus, you're suffering from the toad's flu," Poppy informed him in a grave voice. "You must stay in bed and rest. From my experience, I know that none of our potions works for the toad's flu. I'll organise some Muggle medications, so we can try them out. Otherwise, you'll just have to wait it out, which might take up to a month. I'll come and look after you as often as I can. I assume that your head and throat hurt as well?"

"Yes," Severus admitted weakly as he lay back and drifted off to drowsiness, musing, '_I should have made Shit a snake. At least I'd be able to use him as potions ingredients if he doesn't survive it_.'

_**Epilogue – **__**Five years later...**_

"Congratulations Neville," Professor McGonagall said, smiling, as Herbology Professor Neville Longbottom, the saviour of the wizarding world, finally managed the Animagus transformation. "You're a wonderful toad."

'Finally!' Tevor exclaimed, escaping from the professor's robe pocket. 'Then you might finally be able to understand me!'

"Trevor," Neville said in surprise. "Yes, I understand you. What's wrong?"

'I am Adam Longbottom, your uncle, and the toad in Snape's private lab is Harry Potter,' Trevor explained hurriedly, before he added impatiently, 'What are you waiting for, boy? Translate for the ignorant Headmistress. She has to transfigure us back.'

**The End**

_I'm not a native speaker of English. Please excuse my mistakes._

_All recognizable characters belong to J. K. Rowling, and I am not earning anything by writing this story._


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